Technical Abstract:
Several years ago during the egg safety risk assessment hearings held in Washington, DC, questions were raised by USDA, FDA, and FSIS officials regarding egg temperatures and the impact that temperature has on the microbiological quality of
eggs. Current research in this area has focused mainly on the temperature of eggs postprocessing.
Some findings by Anderson et al. (1992), Czarick and Savage (1992), and Dameron et al. (1994) have explored egg temperatures during washing, candling, packing, storage, and partial phases of distribution. However, research has been limited
that documents the complete time and temperature changes from production throughout all phases of egg distribution.
It has been documented that the internal egg temperature can enhance the growth of potentially harmful microorganisms (Gast and Holt, 2000). Thus, researchers and food safety regulators have indicated the need to determine internal egg temperatures from
point of lay to retail. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to: 1) determine the external and internal temperature of eggs from farm to retail, 2) to identify the variables
associated with production and processing which influence the time and temperature sequence that eggs are exposed to, and 3) to develop a model in which various time and temperature scenarios of production, processing, and distribution of eggs could be
inserted to predict the resulting egg temperature.
To accomplish the above, researchers at California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas set out to gather data on external and internal egg temperatures in various production, processing, and distribution settings
during two seasons of the year (summer and winter). The ultimate goal was to develop a time and temperature model whereby producers and processors could input their known temperature variables to be able to predict the temperature sequence of eggs during
processing and distribution. Thus, the report herein, describes the methodology used and data collected on egg temperatures monitored during the production, processing and
distribution phases. A partial summary of the work presented herein has been presented by Patterson et al., 2003; Koelkebeck et al. 2003; and Anderson et al. 2004. Further analysis of the data gathered is still progressing in order to develop the full egg
temperature prediction model.